Pokemon Cards
by TheLateNightStoryteller
Summary: Set between 1x20 and 1x21. Simmons tries to cheer Fitz up with a game of Pokemon cards.


This story takes place just before the last two episodeds of season 1, when they are staying at the hotel. It switches back and forth between Simmons' and Fitz's persepctives so I hope it isn't too confusing, but I tried to make it clear who was thinking what. It begins with Simmons.

Agents of Shield and Pokemon belong to their MasterBall great creators.:D

* * *

They sat together, pant legs rolled up halfway to their knees, cooling their feet in the deep end of the pool.

Agent Triplet had been kind enough to share his candy and the sweet taste of it lingered on Simmons' tongue as they spoke with him.

Well, she was speaking with him anyway. Fitz had warmed up surprisingly to the other agent after their discussion, whatever she said must have gotten through to him (yay, tiny internal fist pump), but her partner was sulking and sour-faced still.

It wasn't anything to do with Triplett, it was everything that had happened, briefly losing track of Skye, Wards betrayal, the organization they'd been a part of for almost a decade crumbling down around them because it had been infected with a nasty evil parasite, masquerading under the name of wonderful, innocent aquatic animal, since before they were born.

He was shaken, scared and feeling the weight of what they'd lost on his slumping shoulders. He was so scared of that loss that he'd worried he'd lose her too. He'd had to hear her say it out loud that he wouldn't, that she wasn't Hydra and she'd never hurt him like that.

Of course she wouldn't, and nothing was going to change between them, not ever. They would always be FitzSimmons, whatever the world threw at them.

Her hand brushed against Fitz's as she continued her conversation with their new teammate, smiling at his light humour, and she left it there because Fitz needed her and she needed him too.

She was frightened as well, they all were, but he was taking this harder than she was and she knew that it was one of the moments when she was required to be the strong one. She had the fix-this-baton and she was forming a plan of what to do with it.

Not that she could really fix everything, it was too big for just her to do, too big even for their team alone, but she could fix what was happening to Fitz.

So after Triplett moved on to share his yummy sweets with the others, she slid her hand into Fitz's and got to her feet, tugging him up with her.

He didn't resist, he only stared at her with those big sad eyes, held onto her hand and slowly lifted his eyebrows, questioning what she was doing.

"We're wiping that frown off your face," she told him, inviting no argument. "I miss your smile and I want it back."

"Jemma..." he sighed. "It's fine, you don't have to-"

"We're not discussing it," she cut him off, beginning to walk towards the hotel and pulling him behind her like a tugboat. "You're coming inside with me, I brought something along from the Bus, a surprise that I'm sure you're going to like."

"I think I'm done with surprises for the rest of my life," he muttered and she clicked her tongue impatiently at him.

"You'll like this one," she insisted.

"OK," he conceded, trusting her.

She wasn't about to let him down.

/-/-/

Fitz sat beside Simmons, exactly where he should always be in his opinion, dipping his toes in the water and listening to her chat with agent Triplett, who wasn't at all a horrible person, who was actually a very good one. He'd just been too stupid and jealous to notice. The same way he'd been too stupid and trusting to notice that the whole world was upsidedown and infected with lies.

Everything was backwards now, everything had changed, except maybe Skye and Coulson who seemed to be the same as they'd always been to him. May was still AWOL though and Simmons... well things with Simmons were complicated. Complicated in a way that forced him to shove down an aggravating lump of envy as she chuckled at something Triplett said.

Still, she was his anchor, and the warm brush of her skin against his was keeping him from being swept away by the angry current of fear and dread and pain rushing across him.

So when she took his hand and rose to her feet, he rose with her. When she pulled him behind her, back inside, he didn't resist because, despite his protests, he didn't really care where he was as long she was there too. The pool, a hotel room, a deep dark cave full of bats, he was past giving a damn, Hydra was everywhere anyway. He bet if he and Simmons were in that cave one of the bats would turn out to be working for them. Simmons wasn't though, not his brave, kind, clever Simmons and he went where she went, like he always did.

/-/-/

There was a desk in the hotel room and she began hauling it into a position from which they could both sit comfortably around it. It was heavy and awkward but the moment she began to struggle with it he wordlessly helped her and it wasn't so difficult anymore.

Next she brought two chairs, placed them on opposite sides of the table from each other and sat him down in one, smiling reassuringly at him for a moment when he gazed up at her, confused.

He tried to smile back but it came out more like a twitch and his eyes were still dull and miserable. Never mind though, she'd fix that soon.

Fitz had no idea what Simmons was doing. Maybe she had packed some sort of delicious snack she wanted to share with him and was preparing the table for it.

He didn't have the heart to tell her that he wasn't hungry.

Simmons searched her bag, finding the metal box at the bottom beneath her pajamas and her toothbrush. The moment she set it down on the table, with a little thunk, she could tell by his face that he knew what it was.

Her Pokemon cards, he almost laughed, she wanted to play with him. After everything that had gone wrong, everything that had been flipped upside down, she wanted to play a game with him.

He could do that, he even smiled for her, because the surge of affection that pulsed through him was stronger than his unhappiness, and was rewarded with a grin that turned his almost laugh into an actual chuckle.

"Look at that, a smile already," she cheered softly, nearly smug and he felt the chain binding him to her in all its strength, leaving no doubt in his mind that he was madly, hopelessly in love with her.

Just for tonight, he decided, that was OK. He would let himself feel everything he'd been trying to keep back, trying to deny to himself. Tonight he would relax and enjoy the spectacular happiness she set him alight with, not thinking of the danger it put his heart in, of how being in love with her might be a painful mistake.

He wasn't going to tell her, he didn't think he had the courage for that yet, but he was going to stop lying to himself and, just for a little while, pretend this wasn't a bad thing.

They shuffled their cards and chose their starters, he had three Pokemon on the bench and she had two.

He flipped over a Mankey to face her Zubat and she laughed, of course. Mankey, the monkey Pokemon.

"You're obsessed," she teased and he shrugged, a tiny smile sprouting like a seedling of a happy tree.

"At least I didn't send out a Zubat first," he shot back good naturedly. "A Zubat Simmons?" he shook his head in mock disappointment but he seemed amused at her. "I see that Grimer on your bench, at least it has an attack that does damage."

"Don't question my strategy," she protested, truly smug now. "I can defeat you without using a single damaging attack," she bragged.

"Oh can you?" he challenged, raising his eyebrows. "Huh, that's what you think."

"That's what I know," she countered and he shot her a look that, wasn't exactly a smile, but was far from a scowl and she took it as a sign that her plan was working (another tiny fist pump).

Fitz hadn't really thought she could win that way, had thought she was being silly, but she opened with her Zubat confusing his Mankey, that damn supersonic, and when he tried to attack luck was on her side and he only ended up damaging himself. Which was fine, minor setback, he decided as he ripped up a notepad paper to use as damage counters. He still had plenty of HP.

And then it was her turn and she played a trainer card, switching her Zubat for an Oddish and poisoned him.

It seemed strangely fitting, that his Pokemon was now both poisoned and confused, like he was. Poisoned, confused and maybe a little trapped in Simmons' web though, while it was Mankey's doom, it was his safety net and he was perfectly fine living entangled in it.

"Alright, not bad," he admitted, chuckling at her as she wiggled her eyebrows at him like a cute, boastful imp. "This time for sure, I'm attacking though," he declared, flipping the coin, only to land on tails and attack himself.

She was laughing at him now but it felt good. He was losing but he wasn't upset, was glad she was having fun.

Between turns, he was damaged again by the poison, more little chunks of paper were placed on his Mankey, his HP beginning to dwindle, and it really did seem like she was going to defeat it.

"I've got you now," she taunted cheerfully as she drew a card.

'You already had me,' he thought. Whether she wanted it or not, she'd taken his heart long ago and he smiled from the inside out at the glee on her adorable little face as she place an energy on her Oddish so she could use Sweet Scent, flipping a coin and landing on heads so that, even if he didn't hurt himself in confusion next turn, he wouldn't be able to attack her.

"I think you put a horseshoe up your butt before we started," he joked, and she stuck her tongue out at him, grinning and warming him with sweet affection like a cup of hot chocolate on a winter evening.

His Mankey took damage from the poison again, only ten HP left. There was no point in attacking and he couldn't retreat or heal himself. She had him beat and he passed his turn, placing the last little torn piece of paper on his Pokemon.

"Oh no! Ahh! You beat me," he joked, feigning a blow and leaning back against his chair, arms splayed out.

"You're the trainer not the Pokemon you silly Mankey," she laughed and the sound of it was like bells on Christmas, shining a bright, cheerful light on his heart and filling it with joy.

"Poor little guy," he lamented, placing the card in the discard pile. "Never even had a chance to use karate chop."

Simmons smiled at him, a whirl of affection causing her heart to spin around happily in her chest. That was her Fitz, her beautiful, big hearted Fitz.

Even when he shouldn't be. Even when, sometimes, his heart was too big for the world they lived in. For what was about to happen.

'Shut up,' she ordered herself, because she had began thinking thoughts that froze the wind in her chest, because she was suppose to be having fun not fretting over the danger they were about to face, about how terrifyingly vulnerable they'd suddenly become.

About how vulnerable Fitz was making himself, keeping himself in denial about Ward. She'd need to get through to him about that eventually because she wasn't about to lose him for it. She wasn't going to lose him for anything.

He played a Sandshrew, evolving it straight away into a Sandslash before attaching an energy card to it and finally placing some damage counters on one of her Pokemon.

"Lets hope things are going to change in my favour now," Fitz said, crossing his fingers.

"Stop being superstitious," she scolded. "I won on strategy."

"And the horseshoe up your butt," he grinned and she crumpled up a notepaper to throw playfully at him, laughing. Silly Fitz.

Change, she'd never said it aloud but it scared her just as much as it scared him. Her fear of it was part of the reason why she tried to ignore the tiny, pleasant jolts that prickled across her stomach when he smiled that smile at her and tossed the paper back.

Shield had changed, her friends, Fitz, Simmons herself, had all changed and she wasn't ready for any more of it, not yet. Not when what she had with him was already so close to perfect, because change broke things sometimes. It had broken Shield, broken their team and she didn't think she could handle it if she let it break the bond between her and Fitz. It was too precious to risk.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket and her heart sank when she retrieved it to read the number. It was her Mum and Dad.

She didn't need to say anything, Fitz knew instantly what had torn away her smile, brightened her eyes, and he put down his cards before rising to his feet, chair scuffling across the carpet.

He walked around the table and stopped to kneel in front of her, taking the phone gently from her hands (she couldn't answer anyway, however much she wanted to) and catching his fingers under her chin to slowly lift her face up towards him.

She stared miserably up at him and sniffed, lip trembling. A single tear flooded over her eyelid and rolled down her cheek and he tenderly wiped away before taking both her hands, rising again, pulling her with him.

Simmons wasn't sure who stepped forward first, but in an instant they were embracing each other and he was rubbing her back as she struggled not to cry.

"Hey, what do you call a secret agent Pokemon?" he whispered.

"What?" she asked, letting out a short chuckle of surprise.

"I dunno, it's a secret," he answered and she laughed again and she kept laughing, unable to stop and he laughed with her even though nothing about what was happening was funny.

After a minute they pulled away from each other and she felt better.

"I got you with that one didn't I?" He teased, gaze filled with warm affection as he touched the side of his hand to the bottom of her chin once more, not lifting it this time but letting his skin linger briefly against hers and smiling that smile she loved so much.

'You already had me,' she thought, staring back at the pair of gorgeous eyes whose view had rested on her face.


End file.
